Kacey Musgraves
Deeper Well
MCA Nashville/Interscope
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“The point is not to resist the flow. You go up when you're supposed to go up and down when you're supposed to go down. When you're supposed to go up, find the highest tower and climb to the top. When you're supposed to go down, find the deepest well and go down to the bottom. When there's no flow, stay still. If you resist the flow, everything dries up. If everything dries up, the world is darkness.” – The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
In Haruki Murakami’s universally acclaimed novel The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (1994), the protagonist Toru Okada seeks and finds enlightenment by isolating himself at the bottom of a deep well, away from humanity, alone to probe the outermost recesses of his mind. Within this context, the well represents the transformative means by which one can procure a more profound sense of purpose through contemplation devoid of distraction.
The title of Kacey Musgraves’ sixth studio album—and the thematic thrust of the fourteen songs contained within—evokes a similar form of existential introspection. Deeper Well finds the resolute artist embracing the inevitable vicissitudes of life and love, finding strength and meaning within the ever-present dichotomy of joy and pain, and welcoming the new experiences that invariably await her in the future.
For Musgraves, the past decade has been defined by a well-deserved ascension in her professional life, juxtaposed with a seemingly far more circuitous and challenging path in her personal life, which she has devotedly documented through her music. Her GRAMMY Award-winning 2018 LP Golden Hour illuminated the halcyon early period of her ephemeral relationship with then-husband and fellow singer-songwriter Ruston Kelly. Its successor, 2021’s star-crossed, represented both a thematic and sonic pivot, propelled by Musgraves’ acute reflections and admirable resilience in the face of the marriage’s demise, with both her vulnerability and resolve on full display for all to hear.
Two-and-a-half years later, Deeper Well arrives in the wake of another romance’s conclusion and follows a string of noteworthy one-off collaborations with Zach Bryan (the GRAMMY-winning “I Remember Everything”), Noah Kahan (the reprise of his “She Calls Me Back”) and Madi Diaz (“Don’t Do Me Good”). And while Musgraves and long-time co-writers/producers Ian Fitchuk and Daniel Tashian have pulled back the glossier pop-strewn sheen of star-crossed in favor of reaffirming her more organic country/folk leanings, it is unequivocally the lucidity of her pen game that remains the defining feature of Deeper Well.
Recorded at the hallowed Electric Lady Studios in New York City’s Greenwich Village, Deeper Well embraces a cohesive, largely acoustic sonic palette replete with subtle synth flourishes and subdued percussion throughout—the perfect canvas for her lyrics and vocals to command the listener’s rapt attention.
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The album commences in radiant, reverential fashion with the airy soft rock of opener “Cardinal,” a touching tribute to her musical hero John Prine, who passed away in 2020. “When cardinals appear, angels are near,” Musgraves surmises in the special zine version of the album. “Unexplainable things started happening and cardinals started showing up on my doorstep soon after my good friend and mentor passed, John Prine. He always had a big connection to cardinals and felt that they were messengers from the spirit realm. He inspired this song, no doubt.”
The pair of official singles follow, beginning with the titular “Deeper Well,” an empowering anthem of self-preservation and awakening that finds Musgraves relinquishing the vices and figures detrimental to her personal growth. “Sometimes you reach a crossroads,” she explains in an official statement about the song. “Winds change direction. What you once felt drawn to doesn’t hold the same allure. You get blown off course but eventually find your footing and forage for new inspiration, new insight and deeper love somewhere else.”
Second single “Too Good To Be True” exemplifies Musgraves’ signature dualism between confidence and vulnerability, as manifest in the song’s chorus (“Pleasе don't make me regret / Openin' up that part of myself / That I've been scared to give again / Be good to me and I'll be good to you / But please don't be too good to be true”).
With its ruminations about the roles that destiny and chance play in our lives, “The Architect” is a standout moment. Atop a sparse yet warmly inviting acoustic arrangement, Musgraves grapples with universal questions of human existence and higher powers, whether our life paths are pre-determined or ours for the paving or arguably the convergence of both phenomena. “Does it happen by chance?,” she inquires in the song’s closing chorus. “Is it all happenstance? / Do we have any say in this mess? / Is it too late to make some more space? / Can I speak to the architect? / This life that we make, is it random or fate? / Can I speak to the architect? / Is there an architect?”
Other highlights are plentiful, beginning with “Sway,” a steady, beautifully constructed ode to embracing the ebbs and flows of life and love (“Maybe one day / I'll learn how to sway / Like a palm tree in the wind / I won't break, I'll just bend / And I'll sway / I'll sway”). “Giver / Taker” eloquently examines the reciprocal nature of love (“I would give you everything that you wanted / And I would never ask for any of it back / And if I could take only as much as I needed / I would take everything you had”).
“Jade Green” is an endearing ballad that evokes the redemptive powers of the gemstone as a symbol of personal healing, while “Anime Eyes” glides along a slow, sublime crescendo with well-placed references to the notable Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki and beloved manga series Sailor Moon.
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Listeners pining for a return to the clever playfulness of her first two records (2013’s Same Trailer Different Park and 2015’s Pageant Material), a rehash of the luminous shimmer of Golden Hour or the proliferation of star-crossed’s pop-driven dynamics may be disappointed upon initial engagement with Deeper Well. But these same listeners would be well-advised to reevaluate how they engage with these albums, as Deeper Well deserves to be embraced neither as epilogue of what’s come before nor as prologue of what comes next in Musgraves’ repertoire.
Instead, Deeper Well exists as a sterling, standalone statement of intent rooted in the inspiration of its creator’s here and now. And it is precisely Musgraves’ unwillingness to conform to others’ expectations or to recycle the tried-and-true that makes her one of the most dynamic artists of our time, as she cultivates a rich musical oeuvre that listeners will have the pleasure of diving deeper into for years and years to come.
Notable Tracks: “Anime Eyes” | “The Architect” | “Cardinal” | “Deeper Well” | “Sway”
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